Note to Pro-Lifers: Bush Ain't Yer Man

Dr. Glen Harold Stassen reports in Sojourners that abortions have actually increased under the Bush administration:

Abortion was decreasing. When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. [...]

Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened. [...]

Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.

Dr. Stassen includes individual state statistics that will surely be of interest to those who know which states were red in 2000. Additionally, he suggest three factors that may have contributed to the increase in abortions under Bush:

First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.

Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.

Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency - with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million - abortion increases.

Were Bush to get a second term and stack the Supreme Court, as he has all but pledged to do, with pro-life justices (ref. the Dred Scott shout-out), abortion will almost certainly be criminalized as a large part of his base desires. This will leave women who find themselves in circumstances as described above with even fewer options, and as his policies continue to wreak havoc in the middle and lower classes, I doubt sincerely that we will see a rise in adoption. It is the belief of this writer that instead we will, sadly, see a rise in abortion-related deaths from illegal and unsafe procedures.